Rise With The Rain
by dearjoanwallace
Summary: Daniel recalls a glimpse of life as an ascended being.


**Rise With The Rain**

By Kellyanne Lynch  
3 February 2007, 2:30pm – 4 February 2007, 3:50am

Beta-Reader: El-Gilliath, atlantisfan, Sally Valentine

Disclaimer: This is an unauthorised tale about Stargate SG-1, and it is purely for entertainment purposes only. I don't own the series or the characters in the following story.

Summary: Daniel recalls a glimpse of life as an ascended being.

Spoiler: Up through the beginning of season seven

Rating: PG

Author's Note: I wrote this fanfic for the LJ community picfor1000, where the challenge is to write fanfiction for any fandom in exactly 1,000 words using a picture provided to you. I chose water, and they gave me a picture of a showerhead sprinkling water.

Daniel waved at the taillights of Carter's SUV and shut his apartment door. He stepped into the entryway and observed the ticking of his grandfather clock with a deep sigh. He couldn't remember the last time that he had a moment to himself, never mind a moment off base. In fact, he could not recall spending any time at his apartment since… well, since he had died.

Crossing his living room felt like stepping through a dream. Daniel stared at the relics that lined his mantel. Each item looked so familiar, but at the same time so strange, as though they were from another life. Each artifact held a history, but he could no longer distinguish the line separating his own from that of a people from long ago. His life pre-ascension felt as much a part of him as something he had read out of a book.

Daniel closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He retreated to the bathroom, where he shed his T-shirt and BDU pants and stepped into the shower. Turning on the stream warmed his chest and sent goose bumps to his extremities. He ducked his head under the current, allowing the water to wash his shoulders and embrace him with its heat.

He closed his eyes again and pictured himself standing in the rain. The droplets numbed his flesh, and he forgot about his body and rose far, far above it. He was pure energy, thousands of miles above the planet's surface. Baleful clouds deluged the earth beneath him. They rumbled, discharging electricity through him to the stratosphere and illuminating the energy around him. Ascended beings gleamed in blues, greens, reds, and purples. Daniel felt power humming through him, through the energy beneath him, in him, and above him, branching up to the ionosphere. The surge subsided, and in the afterglow, Daniel felt peace within himself and with the others.

The clouds growled again, shooting another bolt of pure power through the chain of ascended beings. This time, Daniel focused his thoughts and rode the wave. Crimson light radiated further from his core, allowing him to reach out to more beings and achieve a greater sense of harmony. He glided the next wave further into the stratosphere, touching more and more souls. If his spirit had lips, they would be smiling.

"Rain rise touches the young like no other," Oma Desala's voice connected with Daniel.

"Rain rise – is that what you call it?" Daniel communicated up the chain to his guide. "On Earth, they're called blue jets. Some call it rocket or upward lightning, or cloud to space lightning. People on my planet began seeing them just over a century ago, when they began flying."

"Yes, many see, but in the body, the spirit struggles to rise with the rain."

With a groan, the cloud jolted another pulse through Daniel. He embraced it, his consciousness brightening and washing further up the chain. "Yes," he hummed. "I feel this… this rush. I mean, I feel like I could do anything, like I have the power and strength to make anything happen. I need to do something meaningful."

"And what would you do?"

"You know what I'm going to say."

"And you know what the others will do."

"Yes. That I do, but what can I do, Oma? What real choice do I have?"

Electricity surged through Daniel, propelling him up through the ionosphere. His crimson glow exploded in a bright white burst millions of miles above the earth, and when the luminescence left him, gravity took hold. Daniel plummeted through the atmosphere. Fear wracked his soul as he crashed through the clouds and plunged toward the earth as a bolt of lightning. His mind, body, and spirit struck the ground with a crack.

Daniel's eyelids flew open, and he found himself staring at his showerhead. He was gasping so hard that a full minute passed before he realised that someone was banging on the bathroom door.

"Daniel! Come on!" Jack's voice called from the other side. "Haven't you been in there long enough? Let's go!"

Daniel blinked, catching glimpses of lightning storms in his mind as they receded to the back of his subconscious. Rubbing his eyes, he reached for a towel and wrapped it around his torso. He gathered his clothes and stepped out of the bathroom.

"Just give me a minute," Daniel murmured, shuffling past Jack and entering his bedroom. He shut the door behind him, and he heard Jack's boots pacing on the other side. Daniel grabbed the first cotton button-up and pair of khakis that he saw inside his closet. He put on the pants and was buttoning up the shirt when he called, "Hey, Jack?"

"Yes, Daniel?"

"Have you ever seen a blue jet?"

"I've flown Jet Blue."

Daniel smiled. "Seriously, Jack, have you seen one?"

"I don't even know what the hell one is."

"It's a conical light that flashes up through the sky in the magnetospheric electrical fields surrounding storm clouds," Daniel explained as he pulled on his shoes. "They're called blue jets, but in actuality, you can see them in greens and reds and purples too. They're emitted from the top of the clouds. They branch up through the stratosphere in milliseconds."

"That sounds like something I saw once," Jack replied.

Daniel looked up as he tied the laces of his second shoe, as though he could see Jack through the door.

"I was flying over Iran in the mid-eighties," Jack continued, "when I could have sworn I saw purple lightning shoot over a cloud like fireworks. It happened so fast, I thought I must have been seeing things. That wasn't too long after that parachuting mishap between Iran and Iraq; I thought maybe that was the concussion talking. Hell, maybe it was. Why do you ask?"

Daniel finished with his laces and rose to his feet. Furrowing his brow, he replied, "You know, Jack, I don't even remember."


End file.
